New Zealand 2011 trip, Day 1, Jan 3rd: Auckland

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Jan 3rd, 5:07pm, Pentland backpackers hostel, Mt Eden…

Sure is warm in Auckland today….

We are in NZ! The 13hr flight passed by smoothly. Several hours of sleep, a couple movies, 2 meals, and some itinerary planning made the time travel fast. We landed 15 minutes early at 7am. The time zone change was only 3hrs off from Pacific Coast Time, but we gained a day, completely skipping Jan 2nd. My friend Karl's birthday is Jan 2nd, and I wondered what it would be like to miss one's birthday. Can you claim to stay the same age for another year????

We walked to the luggage claim area, and picked up our 3 checked bags, however, my missing 4th bag didn't make it onto the flight. Fortunately, it appeared 30 minutes later when the following LAX to Auckland flight arrived. Success! All that remained was passing customs, or as NZ calls it, "Biosecurity clearance". They checked our boots for dirt, and also inspected our tent (which we had cleaned prior to traveling). No problems there. Then they opened our 48lb suitcase of dehydrated foods. I mentioned how I had emailed them to make sure everything we brought would be ok, and they were impressed, and let us go after poking around a bit.

A decorative entrance way at Auckland airport...

We called up Apex car rentals for a shuttle to their site near the airport. It was very sunny and warm out as we waited at the curb. Our car is a Nissan Sunny, 4 door sedan, automatic. with cassette tape player (glad we brought the tape adapter for Wendy's ipod). Before leaving the rental site, we changed into shorts (Wendy a dress), and then began the awkward first moments of driving on the left side of the road (and sitting on the right side of the car).

We stopped by our hostel as it was on the way to Auckland's downtown, and bought 30 days of Tomizone internet for $50. Hopefuly this provider is used all over NZ (the hostel guy said it was the most popular). Around 10:30 we made our way into town, driving around looking for parking. A couple restaurants we targeted were closed, and we ended up finding a fish market to have lunch. We had fish of the day, grilled crayfish, and a smoked mussel salad. I wondered why our bill was a little high, and later saw a sign, "10% surcharge during holiday period."

Checking out pay wi-fi in the hostel lounge. Arriving at the Auckland fish market along the harbor...

More pics from the fish market, and our lunch there...

After lunch we drove to the Kelly Tarltons antarctic aquarium, which was extremely crowded. The entrance line was 150 people long (and very slow), but Wendy had read you could buy admission online instead, which we did earlier at the hostel. Not only could we walk past the mass of waiting people, we also got 10% off! DEFINITELY buy online if you plan on going. The aquarium had a Disneyland type ride that took us through a penguin exhibit. An Antarctic recreation hosts a couple hundred penguins. Overall, the aquarium was pretty small, but had some unique components (like a glass tunnel with a moving sidewalk).

The aquarium had re-creations of the Shackleton Antartic living/working areas. We also saw a manta-ray "attack" an employee (usual business). It was like a big throw carpet thrashing violently out of the water...

We took a tram ride through the penguin exhibit...

Managed to get some decent photos with the zoom lens through the windows...

The aquarium had a glass tunnel...

Wierd mouth on the creature above the tunnel in the 1st pic. Shark in the 2nd pic...

A big manta ray swims above. A view of a shark from below...

After a walk out along a pier, we returned to the city, and found a big supermarket to load up on toiletries and some food. Prices were expensive for produce and meat! Worse than Iceland, surprisingly.

Lots of fisherman on the wharf, across from the museum...

The view out towards the heart of Auckland, with the Sky Tower piercing the sky...

Now we are back in the hostel, relaxing before dinner with the window open. There is a very bizarre and complex bird call coming from outside the building (like some random "noise" at the end of a Beck song). I thought it was a crazy cellphone ringtone that kept going off at first.

11:22pm, Pentlands backpacker, Auckland…

I dozed for an hour before dinner, helpless against exhaustion from the past 5 days. At 6:45pm, we drove up to the summit of Mt Eden, just a mile from our hostel, and took in the magnificent 360 degree views overlooking Auckland and the entire bay, in the golden evening sun. A large grass crater revealed that this used to be a volcano at one point in time.

The view of downtown Auckland from atop Mt Eden, near our hostel...

We walked around the grassy crater, from this extinct volcano...

A look to south, from Mt. Eden. One Hill Tree is on the grassy mound at the right of the pic...

After ~20 minutes at Mt Eden, we went to a tapas restaurant nearby (found in Lonely Planet), and discovered that a 15% "holiday fee" would be applied. Turns out Jan 3rd and 4th (tomorrow) are considered national holidays. Unfortunate timing. However, we ordered some lamb with moroccan chickpeas, squid and couscous salad, and a goat cheese, pumpkin, dill, tomato crepe. The meal was outstanding! Wendy loved the crepe so much, she ordered another instead of a dessert.

For our first dinner on sabbatical, we opted for a nice tapas place in Mt Eden. We were quite satisfied...

After our meal, we waited a good 30 minutes for our check, but the waiter never came with it, so we paid at the register on our way out. We then stopped at a grocery store near the hostel to pick up a sim card for our phone and some lunch for tomorrow.

Felt great to shower (haven't been able to shower much this week with all the overnight traveling/scrambling getting back from the east coast). I'm tired and eagerly looking forward to sleeping a full nights worth in a bed (first time in 5 days)!